How to Make Money Blogging: How I By: Bob Lotich

How to Make Money Blogging: How I
Replaced My Day Job With My Blog
By: Bob Lotich
Published by Rendren LLC at Smashwords
Copyright 2013 Bob Lotich
Table of Contents
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Note from the Author
How it all started for me
Four steps to get blogging in 10
minutes
Blogging Basics
How to set up a self-hosted blog
Get a customizable theme
How I make money with my blog
How long does it take?
How to get traffic to your blog
SEO tips for bloggers
How I increased Adsense earnings by
$1500 in 3 months
Seven tools that helped make it all
possible
Warnings for those starting out
Note from the Author
The purpose of this book is to show you how to
make money with a blog. I suspect most people
won’t stick with it long enough to make a full-time
income, but even making an extra few hundred
dollars a month isn’t too bad either.
This book is fairly short. I am a very to-the-point
type of guy, and I much prefer the meat and
potatoes over a bunch of fluff. So, rather than fill
this book with fluff, I’m keeping it very concise
and full of helpful information for new to
intermediate bloggers.
If you’re around the blogging world, even a bit,
you’ll quickly realize there are a lot of bloggers
who make money by talking about how to make
money online. Rather than just talking about it, I
chose to see if I could actually make a full-time
living before ever wrote about it at all.
That’s not to say there isn’t plenty to learn from
unproven bloggers, but I felt more comfortable
proving to myself I could do it before teaching
others. Now that I’ve found it’s actually a legit way
to earn some money, I decided to pour into this
book as much as I could about blogging.
If you find the book helpful, or if you see ways I
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can improve the book, or even if you hate it and
want a refund, please send me a quick email
([email protected]) to let me know. I greatly
appreciate your feedback, and it will help me
continue to tweak and improve the book – so
thank you in advance!
Sincerely,
Bob Lotich
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1. How it all started for me
In early 2007 I was talking to a friend of mine
about the idea of building websites full of free
information to help people. After brainstorming a
bit, I got a couple of ideas for topics I’m
passionate about: Proverbs and personal finance.
My first idea was to post a Proverb each day and
comment on it. As I explained my idea further to
my friend, he told me I would basically have a
blog. I didn’t know what a blog was, but I thought,
“Oh, OK, sure.”
So, over the next few weeks I read as much as I
could find about blogging and ultimately decided
to create a blog about personal finance from a
Christian perspective. I’m very interested in
helping people with their money, so blogging
seemed like a great way to reach people all over
the world.
Over the next couple months I started writing
articles and officially launched ChristianPF.com
in June 2007. At this point I thought about
making money from the site but had no idea how
and honestly didn’t really think it was possible to
make a living at it. I put up an Adsense ad just to
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see what would happen, and I still remember how
excited I was when I saw that I made my first
seven cents!
From there, I set a goal to make $100 by the end
of 2007, which was fairly easy to accomplish –
even without knowing anything.
I should also mention that from June 2007 to
June 2008 I spent about four to six hours each
weekend writing articles and averaged about four
new articles each week. Also, I spent a few more
hours during the week on site maintenance,
emails, social media, etc. So in total I probably
spent about 10 hours each week working on the
site.
Getting laid off
In July 2008 things got interesting; a larger firm
bought out the large brokerage firm where I
worked for five years. I was told the company no
longer needed my department, so they handed me
a severance check, and I was on my way. I was
making some money from the blog but not
enough to even pay the rent each month.
After much prayer and discussion with my wife I
decided against looking for another “day job” and
to work full time on building the blog. We had
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paid off most of our debt and had my wife’s
income as a support to buy us some time. I figured
I’d give it a shot for a few months, and if it didn’t
work out, I’d find another 9-5. From that point the
income generated from my blog increased each
month and in February 2009 – for the first time –
it exceeded my monthly income from my old day
job.
I’m still a little bit in awe and can’t believe I’m
actually paying the bills from my blog! But I thank
God every day that I get to do what I love and get
paid to do it. I really did not enjoy the corporate
America thing and am so thankful to do what I do!
It’s hard work, but it doesn’t really seem like it
when you’re doing something you’re passionate
about and love doing.
Regardless of what your personal long-term
blogging goals are, keep on reading, and I’ll try to
help you take the next steps towards reaching
them!
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2. Four steps to get
started blogging in 10
minutes!
If you just want to start your blog immediately,
you can follow these steps below, but this is just a
quick CliffsNotes version. (For more detail finish
reading the book!) These recommendations are
the things I would do if I had to do it all over
again today.
1. Find a domain name
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Go to Domize.com and search until you
find a domain name that’s available (blue
ones are open, red ones are taken) but
don’t purchase it yet.
If possible, aim for a domain name that
has at least some of the keywords you want
people to find in the search engines.
2. Get a domain name and web
hosting package
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There are thousands of webhosts out
there, but Hostgator is my favorite for
reasons we’ll cover later. Head over to
Hostgator.com and select either the
“Hatchling” or “Baby” plan.
Then make sure you register the domain
you found in the first step.
Next enter “ChristianPF25” as a promo
code and it will knock 25 percent off for
you.
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Now follow the remaining steps to
complete your purchase.
3. Install WordPress (with a little
help)
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Either watch this video
(http://youtu.be/u4gunO49mlk) for
detailed instructions or just jump on the
phone or use the chat box with Hostgator.
When you get someone on the line, just
say you want to install WordPress on your
blog.
Whoever you’re talking to will hold your
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hand and walk you through the process (if
not, please email me). When complete ask
for the WordPress login information.
4. Login to WordPress
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Once you have the login information, you
can go to
http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin
and login.
Now that you’re logged in to WordPress,
you can begin making changes to your site
and/or publish your first post.
That should get you up and running. If you’re new
to WordPress, you can learn the basics of running
a WordPress blog in my Blogging 101 course
(Bloggingyourpassion.com/101).
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3. Blogging basics
I’ll try to boil this down to the essentials. There
are whole books written on this subject, so I won’t
to try to cover everything here. But for a quick,
bottom-line version keep reading.
What is a blog?
A blog is short for Web log. Basically, it’s just a
website that has entries listed in reverse
chronological order. The original idea behind it
was to be an online journal or diary that was
updated daily (or as frequently as the writer
chose).
During the past decade many software companies
have created programs and blogging platforms to
make the process VERY EASY. As the blog writer,
depending on which platform you use, you can
just type your entry, press submit, and it shows up
on your blog for the world to see. Most bloggers
don’t know any programming languages and are
not “techies,” and these companies know that.
Starting a blog is one of the easiest ways out there
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to start a website. If you haven’t started one yet,
why not try it? It can be very quick to set up and is
sometimes completely free.
Is it easy to start a blog?
It’s very easy. Even if there are steps along the way
that are confusing, there are plenty of resources to
get the help you need. There are more than 20
million blogs in existence, so starting a blog can’t
be that difficult.
How much does it cost to blog?
There are many services that allow you to start a
blog for free. If you’re just trying out this whole
blogging thing, try using one of the free services to
get a basic feel for blogging and get your feet wet.
Once you decide you want to stick with it and that
you want to make money with your blog, you may
want to move up to a self-hosted blog. Anyone
who is really trying to make money with a blog
will probably find more success with a self-hosted
blog. Getting a self-hosted blog probably isn’t free
but still can be VERY inexpensive. You need to
pay for nothing more than a domain name (about
$10/yr) and webhosting (as cheap as a few bucks
a month).
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Getting a blogging platform
All three of the options listed below are free. The
first two options are the easiest but are also
limited on features. If you are just trying to make
an extra few hundred dollars from your blog,
these options could work. But if you’re really
serious about trying to make good money from
your blog, try self-hosting your blog (which we
talk about in the next section).
Blogger.com – Blogger is very good and easy to
set up, and Google owns it. You can customize the
theme, and the domain name includes
“.blogspot.com.” (In some people’s opinion this is
a little less professional.) Blogger continues to
become more customizable and currently has a lot
more options than it did a few years ago.
WordPress.com – These sites are completely
free and easy to set up, and you can customize the
theme, but other customizations are limited,
domain name includes “.wordpress.com.” The big
downside with these sites is that they don’t allow
you to place ads on your blog.
WordPress.org – Wait, what’s the difference
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between wordpress.com and wordpress.org? To
put it simply, WordPress.com is where you go to
set up a basic, easy blog with limited features.
WordPress.org is where you go to get a self-hosted
blog. If you get to the point where you’re serious
about blogging and really want to make some
money with it, you need to self-host your blog.
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4. How to set up a selfhosted blog
If you plan to use one of the first two free options
from the previous section, you can skip this
section.
If you’re serious about blogging and looking for
the best way to customize your blog’s look and
other features, then getting a self-hosted blog
from WordPress.org is the best way to go. It’s far
and away the top choice for most bloggers. It does
require a little more work up front and does have
small costs associated with it: buying a domain
name (about $10/year) and hosting your blog (<
$10/month).
One of the big advantages is that you can use your
own domain name (i.e., yourblog.com). While this
might not seem like a big deal, it’s a lot easier for
people to remember yourblog.com rather than
yourblog.blogspot.com, which is what you get if
you use Blogger.
While it’s a little more work on the front end, I’m
really glad I got good advice and did this at the
beginning, rather than doing it a year or two down
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the road.
Pick a domain name
You should start by purchasing a domain name.
Psychicwhois.com is a great tool to help you find
available domain names. Try going for a .com
rather than a .info or .us or anything else for that
matter. It’s just too easy for people to get
confused. A .com is always going to hold more
value than any other extension.
Once you choose it, you need to find somewhere
to purchase it. I bought my first few domains at
GoDaddy.com and have bought the remaining
ones from my hosting companies. While GoDaddy
is about one of the biggest names out there, I (and
many of my peers) have had bad experiences with
them; so I wouldn’t recommend using them. Also,
it’s often easier just to buy the domain from the
hosting company you sign up with since it will
almost always simplify the process.
Pick a host for your blog
The webhost is the company you pay to store all of
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your blog files. There are also a million
webhosting companies out there. Don’t just look
for the cheapest one because a lot of these
companies are not very reliable, and your site
might be down quite a bit. Try going with a bigger
company that has a longer track record and is
more established.
They may cost a dollar or two more a month when
you’re starting out, but it’s well worth it. I have
hosted my websites with Dreamhost from the
beginning, mostly because I knew a lot of people
using them, and I got a hosting package for about
$7 a month.
Now, I wholeheartedly recommend
Hostgator.com over Dreamhost. The biggest
reason is because Hostgator has staff available via
phone or chat 24 hours a day. This is NOT very
common for the cheaper webhosting companies.
You will inevitably run into a problem with your
site at some point, and it will comfort you to know
you have someone to call when problems arise.
Hosting companies I’ve used
HostGator.com (As low as $3.96/m)
I started hosting with Hostgator after becoming
increasingly frustrated with MediaTemple. From
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my experience Hostgator’s customer service
seems to surpass any other host I’ve used. I’m so
impressed with its customer service that I now
host all my sites through Hostgator (except my
biggest one).
Bluehost.com (As low as $6.95/m)
I hosted a few of my sites with Bluehost, and I had
a really good experience. It’s cheap and has a great
phone support. The only downside is that there’s
one hosting package, which is fine for small to
medium sites but not so good if your blog
continues to grow into a large blog.
Dreamhost.com (As low as $8.95/m)
As I mentioned earlier, I started with Dreamhost
and was happy with it for the price, but I always
longed for phone support, and the company
doesn’t really offer it. If you decide to use it, I have
a coupon code you can use for 25 percent off. Just
enter “Christianblog” as the promo code.
MediaTemple.net (As low as $20/m)
I hosted my main site (ChristianPF.com) with
MediaTemple for a couple of years, but after many
bad experiences with the customer support team
and frequent hold times of 45+ minutes, I left. I
don’t recommend them.
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WPengine.com (As low as $29/m)
I now host my main site with WP Engine. The
main reason I moved to WP Engine is because the
whole operation is specifically for WordPress
sites, and as a result, it can tweak the servers to
increase site speed and minimize downtime. Also,
all of the support staff is very well trained in
WordPress, which is rarely the case at other hosts.
Summing it all up
HostGator is an excellent choice for new bloggers
because there’s dependable support, and it’s cost
effective. And for bloggers who want a rock-solid
hosting company and can afford a little more, try
WP Engine.
Also, here’s a deal for you. If you decide to go with
Hostgator, just use my 25 percent off Hostgator
promo code: “ChristianPF25,” and it will knock off
25 percent for you.
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5. Get a customizable
theme
After I took the step to self-host my blog, the next
step that greatly helped me increase earnings was
to choose a highly customizable theme. This costs
anywhere from $50-$100 so you may not want to
do it at the beginning, but once you’re committed
to blogging and want to invest a few bucks,
putting that money toward a premium theme is a
good investment.
For all my blogs I use either the Thesis theme or
the Genesis theme. Without getting into all the
details, if you asked me right now what the best
WordPress theme was, I’d say the Genesis theme.
Thesis is really good, but it has gotten more and
more complex in recent months, so I normally just
recommend the Genesis theme for most bloggers.
Right out of the box, it provides you with a very
pretty site that’s very easy to customize. It is SEO
optimized very well, has a lot of bells and whistles
and a ton of support. The kicker is that you can
buy it and get lifetime updates for $59.
If you’re a programmer, you really don’t need to
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buy a theme because you can make all the
customizations yourself to any basic theme. Since
starting to blog a couple of years ago, I have
learned a little HTML, but I’m still about the
furthest thing from a programmer! So, for people
like me, a customizable theme allows me to
control things and areas on the site I could never
change without the help of a programmer.
But even still, if you have a specific vision of what
you want your blog to look like and aren’t willing
to compromise on that, you will probably need the
help of a programmer/designer to help you.
Elance.com is a great place to find one.
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6. How I make money
with my blog
When I go to family functions or social events, I
often get a blank stare when I explain what I do
for a living. I think people understand the part
that I write articles and put them on a website, but
when it comes to making money from it, they
don’t get it. In this section I will lay it out, and I
hope it will help bring some clarity.
CPC ad networks (cost per click)
There are a few different ad networks I use on my
blogs. The most successful one is Google’s
Adsense program. It is a cost-per-click model,
which means that I get paid every time a visitor
clicks one of those ads. Google’s responsibility is
to read the article I write and find ads that are
relevant and display them next to the article. It
actually is a pretty good system, and as a result it
tends to be the easiest and quickest way that most
bloggers start making money. Also, many of the
extremely relevant ads that Adsense provides can
be quite beneficial and helpful to the readers.
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For example, if I write an article explaining what
an IRA is, but don’t mention where you can open
one, Adsense will likely display ads for places to
open an IRA. So, if I read that article and decided
I did want to open an IRA, the ads provide options
the article did not. All things considered, when
Adsense ads are optimized correctly they can be a
great way to earn from your blog. I’ll explain more
about how to optimize the ads in the following
sections.
CPM ad networks
While Adsense pays on a click basis (CPC), I use
other ad networks that pay by the total number of
visitor impressions (CPM, cost per thousand). At
the beginning these networks don’t produce much
income, but as the traffic grows, CPM networks
seem to work well in conjunction with Adsense. I
use (or have used):
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Pulsepoint.com
AdClickMedia.com
Adbrite.com
Adify.com
Technoratimedia.com
Casalemedia.com
Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and
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may be suitable for one kind of a site and not
another.
Affiliate product sales
Let’s say you sell lawn mowers, and I refer
someone to your store who’s interested in buying
a mower. If the customer then purchases the
mower, you send me a check paying me a percent
of the sales price.
This is essentially what an affiliate sale is. It isn’t
much different from being a 100 percent
commissioned salesperson for a company except
that online you can do it for multiple companies.
There are a million options to get started with
affiliate ads on the Internet now. Some programs
you can use are:
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Affiliate-program.amazon.com
FlexOffers.com
CJ.com
Shareasale.com
E-Junkie.com
LinkShare.com
There are many others, but these are a few of the
more popular ones available.
I have a very strong policy about honest
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recommendations. I give my honest opinions
about products regardless of how it affects affiliate
sales. For example, I wrote about Cash Crate and
updated the article to show what I didn’t like
about it. Because Cash Crate has such a generous
referral program, I know some people make lots
of money from it, but I just don’t feel comfortable
recommending it since I had a bad experience
using it.
On the other hand there are products like Ebates,
YNAB, Swagbucks and Sharebuilder I
recommend and also have some sort of affiliate or
referral program as well. These are what I love
because I can help readers by pointing them to
good resources and tools that helped me and get
paid in the process. I know some people don’t
have a problem promoting anything that will pay
them, but I just can’t, in good conscience,
recommend something to someone that I don’t
genuinely believe will help them.
Direct ad sales
I also sell ad space directly to advertisers. This
hasn’t provided much income for me yet and may
or may not even be worth my time. I know that in
certain niche markets direct ad sales can work out
very well, but thus far it hasn’t been a big money
maker on my blogs. But if you’re interested in this,
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check out buysellads.com. The site is basically like
a middleman helping bloggers and advertisers get
connected.
7. How long does it take to
make money from a
blog?
The second question that people normally ask
after, “How do I make money with a blog?” is,
“How long is it going to take?” Well, let me just
say this, if you’re looking for a fast way to make
money, blogging isn’t it. It takes time and hard
work. As you can see from the chart below it took
me a long time before the trend started moving
upward.
But for more than a year I worked at it about 10
hours a week. And don’t forget I didn’t know
anything about blogging, advertising, getting
traffic, etc. when I started. So, if you know what a
blog is, then you have a head start on me. I’m
going explain most of the things I didn’t know the
first year that I did to help create that upward
trend in the following chart.
Blog earnings visualized
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Other people I know who make a decent amount
from their blogs confirm this curve is typical.
While the first year didn’t yield much income, it
was crucial for the second year. I wish I could tell
you that you could jump right ahead to where the
income starts increasing more quickly, but I just
don’t think it’s likely.
There are some tips in this book I wish I knew at
the beginning, and I think they’ll make things go a
lot more quickly for you, but there’s no getting
around it’s going to take time to get there.
However, just like anything, the more you put in
the more you get out.
The two keys are consistency and a
willingness to learn.
Without them, it’s very difficult to earn much
money with your blog.
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8. How to get traffic to
your blog
If you’re like most, you want to create a blog so
that others can read what you have to say. Sadly,
people will not find your blog (in the beginning
anyway) unless you do a little legwork. These are
some of the things I did to get traffic and some
that I still do. The first thing to do is write a few
great articles about your topic and feature them in
your sidebar. Then, start working on generating
traffic, because you not only want traffic, but you
want returning traffic as well.
Blog commenting
One of the absolute best ways for new blogs to get
traffic is just to comment on other blogs.
Commenting with a thoughtful and/or
provocative response will often send a few visitors
your way. The blogging community is generally
very social, and those who are active often reap
the rewards. Even more important than the few
visitors you pick up from it is the relationships
you can develop with other bloggers.
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Guest posting
I think this is one of the best ways to start getting
some traffic and building an audience. Guest
posting provides a great opportunity for a newbie
to write an article that 20,000 readers can see. I
don’t know of any other method that could bring
traffic as quickly.
The key is to write a great article – don’t hold back
your best stuff. I’ve seen people grow their blogs
very quickly by posting some of their best articles
on other sites. Also, only submit unpublished
content as a guest post. If it’s already published,
then the blog that’s allowing you to guest post
won’t get any search engine traffic for that article.
There are, though, places to republish your
articles. We’ll get to that in a minute.
First, do a lot of commenting on some small to
medium-sized blogs in your niche. Get to know
the bloggers, connect with them via email or other
social media, and get to know them. THEN, offer
to write them a guest post.
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Sign up for blog community sites
Just a couple off the top of my head are
technorati.com and blogcatalog.com. Look for
other blogs in your niche and join their networks
and ask to become their friends. Networking with
some of your fellow bloggers here will send a few
visitors your way and is a good way to get started.
Submit to Blogcarnival.com
One of the best things beginning bloggers can do
is to sign up for blogcarnivals. At this site you can
submit articles you wrote on your blog for
inclusion in a list of articles by the hosting blog. It
is kind of like “open mic night.” If you have an
interesting article with an exciting title, you can
get some good traffic from blogcarnivals, not to
mention incoming links from other related sites.
Join directories
If I were starting a blog today, one of the first
things I would do is Google “whatever topic I want
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to blog about” + “directory” This should return a
list of web directories about your topic. I wouldn’t
waste my time with any directory that guarantees
inclusion. The key is that the directory will check
out your site and make sure it’s legit before
approving you. This is how you know it’s a good
directory. You may not get a lot of traffic, but
getting in a few good directories is still an
excellent step forward. A few of the more valuable
ones to get you started:
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Dir.Yahoo.com
BOTW.org
DMOZ.org
Blogged.com
JoeAnt.com
Greenstalk.com
Familyfriendlysites.com
Forum commenting
Becoming involved in forums or message boards
related to your topic and having a link to your blog
in the signature line can send a few visitors your
way. Google “your topic” and “forums,” and you’re
sure to find a few. Just don’t be annoying and go
in just to promote yourself. People can see that
from a mile away. The new age of the Internet is
very much a “give and you shall receive”
environment. If you seek to give and be a benefit
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before seeking your own rewards, you’ll be much
better off.
Linking to other blogs
I don’t know what it is, but everyone wants to
know when someone is talking about them.
Bloggers are no different. When people link to my
site, I get a notification and often go check out
who linked to me and what the context was. I
formed some positive relationships just from this.
This is a great way to get on the radar of some
small to medium-sized bloggers in your niche.
Create small topical pages
Squidoo.com, InfoBarrel.com, Hubpages.com,
and a handful of others are sites that allow you to
build a simple page about a topic. You can do it
very quickly, and the pages often rank well in the
search engines. If you build a page that gets a little
bit of traffic and have links coming back to your
site, you can catch some of those visitors. As if
that weren’t good enough, many of them allow
you to earn money from your articles as well.
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Article submissions
Submit articles to article submission sites. These
sites collect articles and most allow a bio-section
that can include a link to your blog. Here are a few
that are worth looking into:
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ezinearticles.com
goarticles.com
articledashboard.com
buzzle.com
articlecity.com
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9. SEO tips for blogs
It takes a while to get a decent amount of traffic
from the search engines. Generally, the search
engines do not like NEW websites. They like more
established sites that have a lot of people linking
to them, proving they’re reputable. This is why
getting links from other bloggers, directories,
other websites that have good reputations in the
search engines’ eyes is very important.
As your blog begins to grow by having more pages
and more links, the search engines begin to send
you more and more traffic. This is a good thing!
But they’re often wary of new websites, so time is
your ally when it comes to the search engines.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a
science/art (depending on who you ask) that
focuses on getting your website or blog to the top
of the search engine listings. Being at the top of
Google’s results for any decent keywords can be a
great source of traffic and the greatest part about
it is that it’s FREE TRAFFIC!
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I won’t get deep into SEO here. There are far more
thorough books about it (for instance,
SEOBook.com), but as your blog grows, try to
learn more about it because it will only help you.
Just like most of the things you’ll learn while
blogging, you don’t need to be an expert at it –
just having a working knowledge will provide
great results.
The thing to remember about the search engines
(especially Google) is that they’re trying to create
a perfect system where any searchers can find
exactly what they want. Google wants to display
the most relevant websites. It will never have a
perfect system, but it probably won’t stop trying.
If you can keep this in mind, it helps when you’re
trying to optimize your blog.
Don’t waste your time trying to trick the search
engines, they will figure it out and punish you for
it. Just focus on making it very clear what your
site is all about and writing worthwhile content
for your reader, and the rest will take care of itself.
So, let’s get to some SEO. These are some of
the most important pieces of SEO that
every beginner should know. If you do these
right, you’re that much ahead of most people who
don’t know anything about SEO.
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1. Title tags
This may be the single most important part of onpage SEO. The title tag of your website is what
shows up in the top of the browser window. It is
also one of the most important factors the search
engines use to determine what your site is about.
In the above picture you can see that the title tag
is “How To Make A Budget” You WILL want to
make sure that your title tags contain the
keywords that you want to rank high enough in
the search engines. If your site is about rock
climbing, you will not want to have “welcome to
Bill’s blog” in the title tags. Something better
would be “Rock climbing 101 | the best rock
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climbing techniques.”
2. Anchor text
Anchor text – the text that people use when
linking. For instance, if I created a link for a great
search engine, you can see the link goes to Google.
“Great search engine” is the anchor text. The
anchor text is a big deal, because it tells the search
engines what other sites say your site is about.
Google pays attention to what words are in the
anchor text. Obviously, you can’t control how
other people link to your site all of the time. But,
for those times that you can, use variations of your
keywords when possible. Linking to other pages
and posts on your website, directory submissions,
blog carnivals and your signature line in forums
all may be good places to make sure you can work
your keywords into your anchor text.
3. Keyword research
If you’re trying to get traffic from search engines,
it’s always a good idea to know what people are
searching for before you start writing. I often use
Aaron Wall’s keyword tool and run some keyword
ideas through it to get estimates of how many
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people are searching for them.
4. Get links
You already know the importance of links coming
into your blog. Getting links to your blog is still
the single most important factor in getting traffic
from the search engines. Other than the great
benefit they play in improving your search
rankings, they also send visitors to your site. It’s
an obvious benefit but often overlooked by people
focusing on SEO. If you get a link from a blog that
gets a lot of visitors, you could see a huge traffic
spike.
If you get links from lots of blogs, you can and will
see visitors coming from most of them. Maybe not
a bunch, but as you get more links, you will see
more visitors. The bottom line about link-building
is that you have to create something great that
people want to link to. If you can consistently do
that, many other things will fall into place.
Think about the whole process as building a house
one brick at a time. And get excited each time you
add a brick because it’s slowly growing into the
structure, and that brick is most likely going to
remain there for years to come.
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10. How I increased
Adsense earnings
$1500 in less than three
months
This section is going to be a little bit beyond the
basics, but these details can dramatically improve
earnings from Adsense. Just to clarify, as I did
this, I was already making some money with
Adsense and had a pretty well established blog,
but I had no idea how much difference a few
tweaks could make.
In my case I increased earnings more than $1500
in a short amount of time. The thing you have to
understand about Adsense is that no two sites are
alike. Every blog has a different audience and
different articles and most likely a different
layout. All these things affect Adsense earnings.
Knowing that, testing and trying new things is
critical to find the winners!
1. Add a privacy policy
This is such a simple thing to do. I never realized
that it’s a “requirement” for Adsense publishers,
but when I added a link in my footer to my Privacy
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Policy, there was a noticeable increase in
earnings. I assume that Google rewards those who
have a privacy policy and punishes those who
don’t by trimming their earnings. In a perfect
world you want your lawyer to draft your privacy
policy, but you’re welcome to use mine for
inspiration to make your life a bit easier (use at
your own risk).
Find it here: http://christianpf.com/privacypolicy/
2. Put ads where people’s eyeballs
go
For me there’s an eternal struggle between
usability and profitability with ads. While I want/
need to make money to pay my bills, I still want to
make my blogs as user-friendly as possible. So, I
made some sacrifices with some of them in order
to maintain certain levels of usability, but one of
the most important keys to making money with
Adsense is ad placement.
As I mentioned before, you need to experiment
with it. But for the first year or more I just kind of
threw the ads wherever I had extra room. Once I
changed the location of my ads, my earnings
tripled overnight. It really freaked me out. I had
no idea that just moving an ad a couple of inches
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would have such a dramatic effect.
3. Section targeting
This was another tweak I made that showed a
noticeable difference in earnings. Basically,
“section targeting” is telling Google what text on
your site to look at when deciding what ads to
show. Google is pretty good at figuring this out if
you don’t do this, but if you have a lot of stuff
going on in your sidebars and footer sections, it’s
probably worth experimenting with. It’s very easy
to implement. You only need to use this tag
to tell Google to start, and this tag
to tell it to stop. I just added a text widget at the
top of my post for the start tag and after the
content for the end tag.
4. Quick Adsense plugin
This is a great WordPress plugin that allows you
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to put Adsense units within the body of your
article. There are lots of criteria that you can
select to really customize your ad placements.
Quick Tip: Here’s a piece of advice worth
thousands of dollars to some of you. I’ve blogged
for more than six years and have had Adsense on
more than 10 blogs, and I can tell you that
almost without fail the most profitable spot to
put an Adsense ad is directly below the article
title on your blog post. This plugin makes that
very easy. So if you’ve never tried that location,
go ahead and try it –you can thank me later.
5. Change the colors
When Adsense first came out, people said to make
the colors as loud and ugly as possible to draw
attention to them. Next, I heard that the best
thing to do was to blend them into the site. Of the
two methods I think that blending works a little
better and definitely looks a lot better!
I have a slight variation that works even better for
me. Currently, I have most of my links set to a
light blue color, not the usual blue. I used to have
many of my Adsense ads match that, but I saw a
nice increase when I changed the ad titles to the
old standard Link Blue (aka #0000FF). I feel that
visually it’s a complement rather than a match. It
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stands out a little bit more but doesn’t look bad
either.
6. Write articles people are
searching for
This might seem unrelated, but it’s very
important. If you’re like most bloggers, you have a
regular readership and you have readers from the
search engines. For some reason a lot of bloggers
just don’t give much respect to search engine
readers and don’t really try to reach out to them
other than trying to “convert” them to a regular
reader.
I approach things a little bit differently. Rather
than getting frustrated that so many search engine
visitors don’t come back, I started to embrace it. I
realized that my main goal was to help people, so
why should I care if they visit only once or on a
daily basis as long as they’re getting helped?
So while I very much appreciate and value my
regular readers, I also understand that I can help
those who find the site via a search engine. I
started doing keyword research to see what people
were looking for in the search engines. If there are
people searching to find out how to start a budget,
I want to help them find out!
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What happened for me as I started to become
more conscious of what people were searching for
was that I started getting more search engine
traffic – which, of course, leads to higher earnings
from Adsense.
7. Add a Google search bar
This is a no-brainer. Google is the master of
search, so you can bet that its search capability on
your site is better than the default WordPress
search tool. By installing this, you’ll help your
visitors find the information they’re looking for on
your site and make some extra cash in the process.
When the search results (from the websites you
choose) are displayed, they have the standard
Google ads present, just like normal Google
search results.
8. Link Google Analytics to
Adsense
A while back, Google Analytics started to allow the
option to integrate your Adsense data. This has
helped me so much. It provides webmasters with
a wealth of information about earnings. It’s simple
to see which articles are making the most money,
which keywords are yielding the most, what sites
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send the most valuable traffic, and a whole lot
more. If you use Adsense, don’t pass this one up.
9. Test, retest and test again
When running Adsense tests, I typically let them
run for a month in order to make sure they’re very
thorough. I have a calendar I use to mark down
when I make changes and what changes I make.
Then, when the test is complete, I compare CPM
and eCPM (effective cost per thousand) rates to
see what performed better. A/B split testing is a
better method when possible, but for certain tests
it just isn’t possible or practical. Either way, if you
want to make more money with Adsense,
experimenting and testing is a must!
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11. Seven tools that have
helped make it all
possible
Not all of these tools directly contribute to the
bottom line, but each one of them proved very
helpful over the last couple of years.
1. Google Analytics (google.com/analytics) –
This is a wonderful (and free) statistics tool
that will help you keep track of your visitors
and analyze a lot of data about them. As I
mentioned before, it now integrates with
Adsense to give even more valuable data.
2. Google Webmaster Tools
(google.com/webmasters/tools) – This will
help you see how Google views your blog. It
will also let you know whether there are any
problems with it that you may not know
about. I had some issues that were really
hurting my search rankings, but I found out
about them and fixed them and voila! All
better.
3. MailChimp Email Marketing Service
(mailchimp.com) – If you haven’t started an
email list for your blog, you definitely should
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4.
5.
6.
7.
consider it. Mailchimp makes it easy because
the site offers this for free (up to 2000
subscribers) while no one else does this for
free.
SEObook Keyword Tool
(tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools) – I use
this to get a ballpark estimate of how many
people are searching for particular keyword
phrases.
Hittail.com – This one provides ideas for
articles based on what you previously wrote
about and could probably rank for. If you have
a blog that’s established, it might be worth
paying $10 a month for it. Try using the free
trial and see how much it helps you.
Stock.xchng – The best free stock
photography site I have found.
BigStock.com - The best cheap stock
photography site I have found. They have lots
of images you can get for just about a buck.
A few more tools worth checking
out
●
My online blogging courses – A couple of
years ago after many requests I decided to
create my own blogging course with my
business partner Jonathan Milligan. You can
find all of our courses here:
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●
●
●
BloggingYourPassion.com
Scribe SEO tool for WordPress –I tried it
out and decided not to continue to use it
because I thought it was priced a little too high
for what I got from it. It can make the SEO
process a bit easier, but I just wasn’t sure
about spending $27 on it. If the price comes
down, I might recommend it a bit more.
How to Build a Successful Blog
Business – I haven’t read this ebook yet, but
some of the biggest names in the business
have some great things to say about the book.
Yaro Starak’s (and Leslie’s) Become a
Blogger Training Course – I haven’t tried
this but have heard good things about it.
Starak is an extremely successful Internet
marketer, and I learned a whole lot from him.
If I were starting out today and could afford
the program, I would do it.
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12. Warnings for those
starting out
Don’t quit your day job
Even if you know a lot about making money with a
blog (just by reading this book, you have a
tremendous advantage over me when I started),
it’s going to take a while. This is not a get-richquick scheme, it’s more of a work-for-free-for-along-time-and-then-reap-your-reward type of
plan.
The beautiful thing is that I can now say it works if
you’re diligent and open to learning from your
mistakes. But either way, conventional wisdom
says, build your blog part-time and when you start
making more from it than your day job, consider
making it a full-time deal. My situation is a unique
one, and I don’t recommend doing what I did. In
my case I am now thankful I got laid off. If I
hadn’t, I would probably still work at a job I didn’t
like!
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Learn everything you can
One of the advantages I have is that I love to learn
and don’t stop when I make a mistake. I work
really hard to learn from my mistakes and figure
out what the better course of action is for the next
time. You’re going to do things wrong, but you
just have to keep going and keep learning.
Learning how to use Google search is very
important. If you do, you can find an answer to
just about every problem you encounter on the
Web.
Avoid time-wasters
Checking your stats every hour, reading 500 blogs
in your RSS, playing on Facebook, Twitter,
Pinterest or Youtube all day will kill your
productivity. Focus on what yields results and stay
disciplined to stick with that. Social media is an
important part of building traffic, but you have to
keep it in check.
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Have fun
While I wrote this book as a guide to help those
who want to make money with a blog, I
understand that many people don’t really care
about that. Either way, life is too short not to
enjoy it. So, whether you want to be a full-time
blogger or just communicate with friends – have
fun!
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Thanks for reading!
As I mentioned earlier, if you found the book
helpful or have some constructive criticism, or
even want a refund, please send me a quick email
([email protected]) to let me know.
I appreciate your feedback; it will help me
continue to tweak and improve the book– so
thank you in advance!
I wish you all the best on your blogging journey!
Sincerely,
Bob
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